


Star of the Sea

by ExpatGirl



Series: Things That Will Probably Not Happen in Season 12 [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dissociation, Hugs, M/M, POV Mary Winchester, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 09:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7930114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She doesn't understand anything, least of all the man who goes by "Cas" and never seems to sleep.<i></i></i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BurningTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurningTea/gifts).



Sleeping isn’t a skill she possesses any more. She always was a light sleeper--a natural inclination, or one long-honed by years of hunting, she doesn’t know and doesn’t care--but this is something else. Her body seems to have forgotten itself somewhere along the way, as though her soul doesn’t fill it up the way it should, and the systems that keep it running are trying to compensate. She swears she can feel _space_ sometimes. Space as in gaps, but also as in galaxies. There’s stars in the broken places. And it doesn’t make _any_ fucking sense. It keeps her up at night.

When she _does_ sleep, she doesn’t drift off the way she remembers doing in the past; she drops like a stone into a well. Mostly she dreams of the house in Lawrence. Some nights, Mary dreams of a dark figure over Sam’s crib and she wakes with a stabbing pain in her belly, like the first time she had a contraction.

Sometimes, she just dreams of the house.

She seems to be everywhere in it at once. She doesn’t recognize any of the furniture and it confuses her. She can’t find her family. The dreams always turn dark. Literally dark. There’s a _thing_ in her home and it’s bent on doing harm. Even if John and Sam and Dean are absent, there are people in danger, and she is a hunter. She knows what she has to do.

Mary hunts and hunts and hunts it, through every room. _I will drive you from here if it’s the last thing I do, you son of a bitch_ she screams, but always it eludes her. It’s bristling and ugly and just out of her reach. In the last part of the dream, every time, she passes a mirror that’s rimed with ice and can’t see her own face.

She wakes up sweating. At some point, she shed the t-shirt Dean gave her. (“Just burn it,” she’d said of the nightgown, as she balled it up and threw it on the table.) She sits up and switches on the lamp. Fading stretch marks line her body like tiger stripes. She looks down at her hand. She flexes the fingers, watches the way they move. She once used them to behead a vampire with a broken baseball bat. She frequently would run them through John’s hair when they kissed or made love--his hair was so soft, like his eyes; he had so much softness to him, it hurt to see the places that the war had made him sharp and hard.

(She tries not to think of how, though she loved him so much it almost seemed unnatural, she often didn’t _like_ him, not the way she thought she should. Sometimes those thoughts come anyway.)

She's used these hands to dig up graves. She used them to punch a nun in the face. She used them to rub Dean’s back as his lungs rattled from the croup at age two, and she was more terrified then than she’d ever been facing a shifter or a demon. She used them to hold Sam against her chest and breathe in that newborn baby smell.

Sam. It’s been three days since they arrived back here from the salt flats and they still haven’t found Sam. But the man they found-- _Cas_ , she reminds herself, hearing it in Dean’s voice, with that low, burning note that she can _nearly_ place--seems to sleep even less than she does, and has devoted himself to the cause with a fervor that almost sets her back on her heels. He’d been gone most of the day yesterday; she’s vague on the details, and doesn’t ask. She goes where they tell her she’s needed, holds out her arm to draw a blade across it when they need blood, even though they protest. (They seem to need a lot of blood--her arms are wrapped in raw white bandages up to the elbows.)

Mostly, she fires guns until her hand goes numb, then switches hands and repeats the process.

Then, she usually makes sandwiches. Dean, it turns out, is much less picky as an adult than he was as a child. Cas barely touches his.

The other day she caught Dean sneaking Cas’ sandwich onto his own plate, but said nothing. Dean’s eyes had gone soft, the way John’s used to, sometimes, when they _liked_ each other. She found herself replaying those few seconds for the rest of the day.

Dean’s shoulders and face had tightened until it hurt to look at him as soon as Cas disappeared up the steps. But he’d been amiable, gentle, let her stay silent as she sat at the press and filled cartridge after cartridge with salt. He’d used the...laptop (the last time she’d seen a computer, it was the size of an entire room). Eventually he got it to play music, and she found herself humming somewhere around the hundredth salt round.

“Judy Collins,” Mary said, pausing in her work.

“Hmm?” Dean asked. He glanced up from whatever it was he was looking at on the screen.

“I love this song,” she said. She suddenly felt shy.

Dean nodded. He looked like he felt the same way. “I--I know.” They watched each other for a moment. The song finished. “You, uh, wanna hear it again?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

They listened to it on repeat for over an hour, and he didn’t complain. Not once.

Then Cas got back. He looked tired.

“Anything?” Dean asked, watching him descend the stairs like he was some holy messenger.

Cas shook his head. “It wasn’t her.”

“Fuck.”

“I think I might have an idea about the sigil she used on m--” He froze, halfway down. “Uh. I mean...”

“Sigil?” Mary asked. She turned to Dean. “You didn’t mention a sigil, Dean.”

“He meant _spell_ ,” Dean said, and the undercurrent of barely-concealed panic was obvious.

“Yes,” Cas said, looking desperately between her and Dean. “I meant spell. I misspoke.”

“Thanks for checking that out, anyway, Cas,” Dean said, with overly expansive good humor. He threw his arm around Cas’ shoulder and squeezed.

“Of course.”

Mary had let the matter drop, but felt the words ticking like clockwork somewhere in her head.

****

She slips from her room and makes her way on stocking feet towards the war room. The air is cool against her legs. When she reaches the end of the hall, she hears movement and turns in time to watch Cas emerging from Dean’s room. It’s odd to see him without the coat. Though she’s wearing far less than he is, he seems somehow more...unclothed. Something about it almost seems indecent. His hair is dishevelled. More than usual.

He freezes like a startled deer at the sight of her, but then quietly pulls Dean’s door closed and makes his face impassive. He’s very hard to read, when he’s not looking at Dean.

They walk silently, side-by-side. “Dean suffers from nightmares,” Cas offers, at last. “Particularly when he’s under great stress.” A pause. “Which is always, really.”

“Nightmares. About what?”

They sit down. There’s a large sheet of butcher paper on the table, under some books. She can just make out the edge of whatever’s drawn on it. Something in a circle. Next to it is an incantation bowl and a box with mother-of-pearl inlay. She knows it holds a knife, imbued with powerful magic.

Cas lets out a long breath. “There’s a lot to draw from, with Dean.”

Something twists in her gut, a surge of protectiveness she remembers, the brute tenderness and animal intensity. She hasn’t felt it in the waking world until now.

“At the moment, they center mainly on Sam,” Cas continues. She wonders where his tie went.

“He seems...very calm about it.” She feels a pang of guilt that she isn’t more distraught. Determined, yes. Angry, yes. But the man in the pictures is a large, stoic presence, even when he’s smiling, and she cannot see any of her baby in him. Maybe when she gets a chance to look him in the eyes.

There’s a pause, and Cas regards her with that _look_. Like he can see the cracks in her and wants to put her back together. He looks at Dean that way, sometimes. “He bears up for your sake.”

“I wish he didn’t have to.”

“As do I.”

“I don’t...I don’t want him to do anything for my sake.”

This seems to amuse him.

“What?”

“Nothing. You just...remind me of him in many ways.” She turns away. The expression on his face is unbearable. She feels like she’ll die from it. He stands, and she can breathe again. “I’m gonna go make some coffee. Would you like one?”

“Anything stronger in there?”

“How strong?”

“Strong.”

“Uh. Whiskey, mostly.”

She pulls a face. Whiskey reminds her of her dad, but it also reminds her of a peat fire. “Sure,” she says.

“Whiskey, then. I’ll have one, too.”

She hears Cas moving around the kitchen. Idly, she pulls the butcher paper towards her.

Though the image is unfamiliar, the shape of the glyphs foreign, the creature meant to be controlled by it completely unknown to her, she sees it for what it is: a sigil.

 _He meant spell_ , Dean’s voice echoes in her head.

 _A sigil is just a kind of spell,_ she thinks.

Next to it is a sheet of paper with handwritten notes. She reads the words with a deepening frown.

 **Like a standard banishing sigil but more painful.** Beside the line is another unknown sigil.

_Painful?_

**Not broadcast. Focused intent, aimed at me** , and next to it, another glyph she doesn’t recognize.

 **Conscious but completely paralyzed for two days. Not like before.** A string of jagged glyphs, followed by a series of frustrated question marks. **Could be ANY of these.**

_Before._

**L wing still isn’t working. Pretty sure it’s still there. Have regained use of R. This one I think.** A vicious-looking slash.

Cold dread cascades through her. Before she even knows she’s done it, she’s grabbed the knife.

“I hope you don’t mind drinking it out of a mug,” Cas--the whatever the hell it is--says. “I know it’s not customa--Mary?”

“Who are you?”

He blinks. He looks so guileless, so confused. “Uh. Cas.” He sets the mugs down.

“I mean,” she grits out, “ _what_ are you?”

His eyes flicker down to the paper on the table, and she sees the moment he understands. He draws himself up, square-jawed and intent. There’s something else there, too, though what it is she couldn’t say.  “I’m an angel. Of the Lord.”

“Bullshit,” she says, gripping the knife until her hand hurts. She closes the space between them with speed she forgot she possessed and presses the blade to his throat. He is unmoved. “You’ve got five seconds to start talking.”

“Dean went for the heart.”

“What?”

He sighs, like he’s really goddamn irritated, and in a series of actions she can’t follow, moves her hand until it’s right over his heart, and drives the knife in. She gasps in horror and lets go. All her predatory grace flees, leaving her dizzy and unsettled, but she forces herself to remain steady on her feet and ticks her chin up defiantly.

Now his irritation has dissolved to something that suggests _laughter_ as he glances from the hilt to her face. “Like that.” He pulls it out--the sticky wet sound is one a hunter never forgets--and hands it back to her. “I’d offer you the same display of proof I offered him, but, uh. I like you, and have no desire to intimidate you.” His mouth twists wryly. “And, as you probably saw from my notes, my wings are still recovering. So.” He reaches out his hand.

“I’ll scream,” she says. “I’ll call Dean.”

“If you wish. Or, I can do it for you.” Cas lowers his hand and draws in a breath.

“Wait,” Mary says. He watches her war with herself, and that infinitely gentle look has returned to his face, although the air still seems to flare and flash around them. “Don’t.”

“Alright.” There’s sadness there. She’s noticed it, on the edges of everything he says and does. “I just...want to heal you. Those cuts you’ve made will scar.”

“Heal me?” Half challenge, half question.

“If I may.” His face takes on a shrewd look. “It would make Dean happy.”

She feels that like a sock on the jaw. He’s dangerous, but maybe not in the way she thought. After a moment: “Okay. Do it.”

He looks relieved. “Don’t be afraid,” he says, and presses two fingers to her forehead.

For a moment, she’s a creature of infinitely folded fire and there’s lighting in her throat, and then it all retreats, and she slumps into Cas’ arms. He holds her very carefully. At this level, she can see the rip in his shirt. “Come on,” he says quietly.  He helps her into a chair and kneels next to her. She offers up her arms, palms up, and he unwraps the bandages with practiced hands. Her skin is unblemished, whole.

For the first time since she got here from wherever it is she came from, she starts crying. Cas looks terrified. She reaches out and grabs on to his shoulders, clinging on to him like a lifeline.

“I don’t understand,” Mary sobs. “I don’t understand anything.”

She feels him tentatively hug back, then slowly tighten his arms. “I’m well-acquainted with the feeling.” He pets her hair, and she wonders, distantly, where he learned that.

“I don’t even _know_ them.”

“Ah,” he says, but makes no move to pull away. “Now, that’s something I can help you with.” She rests her forehead on his shoulder, and lets him hold her. “Tell me what you want to know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, they're doing things on the DL. She'll figure it out eventually. She's smart.
> 
> I don't even know where this is coming from, I have other things to work on! (Like editing my DCBB. Oh god, the editing. The editing!) But hey. This is an idea that won't let go.


End file.
